One Care and One Education Routine Essay

Rational For this assignment I plan to implement one care and one education routine in an ECCE setting. I will evaluate and reference relevant legislation, policies and procedures. I will give a description of the routines that should demonstrate an understanding and value for equality and diversity. Planning of the Care Routine Consultation with a supervisor I asked my supervisor in the crà ¨che if it was okay for me to help during feeding time and she gave me permission to do so. The care routine I have chosen to do my assignment on is assisting a child to eat. I am going to prepare and feed an 18 month old baby boy. I got out the baby’s bib and high chair and disinfected them to prevent infection. I placed the baby’s food in the fridge that morning and when it is time to feed him I am going to heat it up in the microwave. I have the baby’s bowl and small spoon prepared as his mouth is so small at this age that he needs small eating utensils. I prepared for after the baby had finished eating, I had appropriate hand wipes and sterilising facilities to clean the bowl and spoon as stated in the Child Care (Pre-school Services) (No.2) Regulations  2006. These regulations also state that Pre-school services are subject to the provisions of food safety, food hygiene and health regulations. Implementation of the Care Routine Step One I cleaned down the high chair and placed a bib on the baby. Baby’s need bibs so as not to get food on their clothes which would be unhygienic. I then placed the baby into the high chair and motivated him letting him know his dinner was coming by showing him the container of the shepherd’s pie and telling him it was yummy. The baby already knew it was yummy as shepherd’s pie is his favourite. Step Two I removed the glass bottle of baby food from the fridge, it was shepherd’s pie the baby’s favourite according to his mother. The Child Care (Pre-school Services) (No.2) Regulations states, food must be stored under suitable refrigerated conditions, which is how I stored it. I am aware of how important the different acts and regulations that are there to protect children. Step Three I placed the food into the baby bowl and then placed the bowl in the microwave. I only heated it for 2 minutes as I did not want it to burn the baby’s mouth. Once the food was heated I brought it over to the baby. He had the biggest smile on his face when he saw what his dinner was. This is an aspect of Siolta as one of the main principles of Siolta is the child’s individuality. Having a favourite food is a part of being individual. Step Four I began feeding him, I pretended the spoon was an airplane to bring in the  element of play into feeding. Another of Sioltas principles states that play is central to the wellbeing, development, and learning of the young child. I am also incorporating Aistears theme of communication as the baby and I are communicating throughout the feeding process. Step Five When the baby has finished eating, I took his bib off him and sat him down on his play mat while I burped him. Step Six After burping him i cleaned up. I placed the bowl and spoon into a steriliser and I wiped down the high chair with hot water and disinfectant. After everything was cleaned and put away I played with him until his mother came to collect him. Evaluation of the Care Routine In my opinion I think this care routine went very well. The baby and I got time to bond while I was feeding him as I added play to the feeding time. I feel I was very hygienic and I kept in line with the Child Care (Pre-school) (No. 2) Regulations 2006. I feel that I had a very important role doing this care activity. I had to make sure everything was prepared and that I had cleaned down the high chair before placing the baby into it. I also had to be very careful about the food, making sure it was heated enough but not too hot so as not to burn the baby’s mouth. I used a food thermometer to check the temperature of the food. Using a thermometer is the only way to know the temperature of food. Anyone working with food needs to know how to use a thermometer. I had to take temperatures in the thickest part of the food. When taking temperatures of a large amount of food be sure to take the temperature in two or more locations. This way you will know that the food is heated to the right temperature throughout. Personal Learning from the Care Routine I learnt a lot from doing this care routine. I learnt all about the child care regulations and I am more aware of what is involved in them. I learnt how important it is to keep everything sterilised and clean. I learnt that feeding the baby can incorporate play to make it easier. I found out how winding a baby is a vital process after feeding. If the baby wasn’t winded after feeding he would be very uncomfortable and not happy until his wind came up. References Education & Care in the early years 4th edition by Josephine Donohoe & Frances Gaynor. Planning of the Education Routine Consultation with a supervisor Before I could start my assignment I had to get permission of my supervisor in the Montessori and she said I had her permission. The education routine I am going to do will be learning colours, shapes and numbers. I am going to do this activity with 1 child aged 4 yea old. I will prepare the materials that I need to do this activity before I start. I need to borrow the wooden shapes from the crà ¨che which will cover my three education routines. I then need to set up a table where the 4 year old girl and I will do the activity. I cleaned down the table using disinfectant and I made sure all the wooden blocks were wiped down before we started to learn so as to prevent the spread of infection following the Child Care Regulations 2006. I explained to the girl what we were going to be doing and she was excited and anxious to start. Children love to play and I believe learning through play is the best way to interest children. It is a child’s right to education and play, these are only 2 of the developmental rights listed in the UN Convention on the rights of the child 1989. Implementation of the education routine Step One I motivated the child by explaining what we were going to do, learning about colours, shapes and counting. She was egger to start. We took our seats at the table where I had laid out the wooden blocks. Step Two Once at the table I let the girl experiment and feel every shape. I then went through the colours of every shape there was yellow, blue, red, green, orange and purple. We said the colours together to try get her familiar with them. She let me know that her favourite one was the orange one. This is bringing in Aistear’s theme of identity again as it his her favourite colour. Step Three I realised she was becoming bored as she was not interested in what I was saying and just wanted to play with the wooden shapes. When she became bored about talking about colours, I started to explain to her the different names of the shapes of the wood. She seemed interested in the names as repeated the sound of them back to me. There was a square, circle, rectangle, triangle, oval and diamond. Step Four After learning the colours and shapes I asked the girl if we should try counting the shapes. We laid them out a finger width apart and began counting them. When we counted up to 6 she told me that her brother is 6. Step five When we were finished with the education routines I asked the girl if she would help me clean up. She placed all the shapes back in there box and I sprayed the table with disinfectant before I sprayed down the tables I made  sure the child was not near where I was spraying so as to protect her. I then washed my hands and asked the girl to wash her hands. Evaluation of the education routine I fell this education routine went very well. The girl was very keen in participating in every aspect, counting, learning shapes and learning colours. Her favourite aspect was learning the shapes. I believe I bettered her knowledge and I feel she is more prepared for Primary School next year as she can now count, she knows a small range of shapes and she knows all the primary colours and some secondary ones. In doing this education routine I am more aware about how Siolta and Aistear can be seen in most education routines. I feel my role in the education routine was very important as I was helping the child to develop intellectually and also having fun at the same time. Personal Learning from the Education Routine I have learnt a lot from doing this education routine. I have learnt how important early education is to a child and how education can be something fun that children will enjoy learning about. I have learnt more about Siolta and Aistear and how important they are as a part of a child’s education. I have also learnt loads about child protection act and children’s rights and the Child Care (Pre-school Services) (No.2) Regulations 2006. All the legislations, policies and procedures that are there to protect children are in my opinion very much seen in the crà ¨che. References Education & Care in the early years 4th edition by Josephine Donohoe & Frances Gaynor.

The Impact the Economy Has on Zoos in the Us

The Impact the Economy has on Zoos in the US Throughout the course of this semester, I have learned much about macroeconomics. I came into this class knowing and understanding very little about this topic and found it very hard to grasp at first. As the weeks passed, I found myself starting to understand it a little better than previously once I started to apply it to a topic that interested me. Being able to choose a topic to write this paper on was a very good way to get students, like myself, to actually look into real life scenarios and apply what we have learned.This is what I will be doing throughout the course of this paper. The topic I chose to apply the concepts I have learned throughout class is the effect the economy has on zoos in the United States. Zoos have been affected dramatically since our economy has started to decline. This decline has affected many, many companies, businesses, and people. Because of all this the zoos have suffered greatly over the past few years. Many different examples of zoos and how they were affected will be given throughout this paper to show the enormity of the situation they are currently in.All of the terms I use throughout this paper have been learned from my Macroeconomics book by the authors McConnell, Brue, and Flynn as cited at the end of this paper. Having said this, I am ready to talk about two struggling zoos and what cutbacks they were forced to make. The first zoo I would like to talk about is the Bronx Zoo in New York. This zoo is the largest urban zoo in the country and it has been hit hard by the dropping economy. With New York being such a large city, the state and city budgets have been cut drastically.This makes the zoo have to cut things out of their budget as well like people, exhibits, and even the animals themselves. The labor force at the zoo has been cut by 15%, this was 186 people who are not out of a job like so many others across the country. Just some more names to add to the unemployment l ist I guess. The zoo also had to close three of its exhibits. The animals from the exhibits were sent all over the country to others zoos that could afford to take them in (Luhby). Not only do these cuts affect the zoo itself, but it also affects the economy as a whole in New York.It is estimated that four million visitors come through the gates of the Bronx and the New York Aquarium each year. In the Fiscal year of 2008, the zoo hired 800 seasonal employees and they are the largest youth employers in the Bronx (Wildlife Conservation Society). This provides a very positive impact on the area and now that they had their nominal income lessened, these jobs are no longer available for these people to have. These are just some of the problems the Bronx Zoo is facing, but what about some other zoos? The Lincoln Park Zoo in Illinois has also been suffering with budget shortfalls like Bronx Zoo.Not only did they face cuts in their labor force and more than a million dollars cut from their budget, but they had to find other ways to make cuts as well (Mullen). They have been using substitute goods for feeding their animals. Blueberries are very expensive so they have not been buying them for their gorillas. They use these blueberries as treats, but since there is a lack of funds they have had to find other treats for them to eat. Choosing less expensive fruit is a small, but effective way to cut costs (Fountain). This is just another way another zoo was affected by the economies current state.Now that I gave you a few examples of how certain zoos are struggling, I would like to discuss just how they are impacted as a whole. There is an organization called the Association of Zoos and Aquariums or known as AZA. This organization sees over zoos all across the world. AZA hired a very recognized economist, Dr. Stephen Fuller to conduct a state-by-state economic analysis. This 21-page analysis has been used in many articles I have examined he seems to have a very strong gras p on just how the economy has affected these AZA accredited zoos.Examples of his findings from two different states will be discussed below. An example state was use to show just how much the economy was impacted by the zoos itself. Indiana brought in $84. 3 million for the national Gross Domestic Product alone. This created 947 jobs and allowed personal earnings to reach $30 million (Zoo Impact: Tens of Millions of Dollars, Hundreds of Jobs). Another example was the impact the Houston Zoo had on its’ surrounding area. Fuller said that in 2010, more than 2 million visitors were recorded to enter the gates. The operating budget at this time was around $28. million. I know that sounds like a lot to run a zoo, but in return they created an economic impact of $70. 7 million. Also in 2010, a capital budget of $24. 5 million generated an impact of $65. 9 million. This all totaled to a whopping $135. 97 million (Your Houston News). All this money is just on a state scale. Across the United States, 224 zoos were surveyed and in total they contributed $16 billion dollars to the Gross Domestic Product. That’s right, it is in the billions! It created around 142,000 jobs and their personal earnings were right around $4. billion (Zoo Impact: Tens of Millions of Dollars, Hundreds of Jobs). All of these numbers could increase if they simply had the funds. The economic crisis that we are in right now has caused their budgets to dwindle down and it does not just affect the zoo itself like I have shown. It affects the people whose jobs get cut because there isn’t enough money, animals lose their homes and get shipped away, and it causes zoos to make cutbacks on the food and care the animals are receiving. In whole, all of this affects the surrounding areas of the zoo and all who live there.This impact then affects the whole United States, impacting the Gross Domestic Product. People just think we can take away money from these zoos to help ourselves out, bu t in reality it is still hurting us. I’m not only concerned about how it affects us, but the animals are suffering as well. These animals were not asked to be given less food or smaller space to roam, but have to suffer the consequences of us humans not being able to care for them because of the economy. We do not always see how we affect the environment and things around us because we are too worried about ourselves.So not only did I take away knowing and understanding terms like GDP, Nominal income, and operating costs, but also on how each individual plays an important role in the economy. All of this has allowed me to understand just how we affect zoos because we are the economy. The economy is determined by our spending of money on goods and services and if we didn’t it would collapse completely like we are starting to witness with other countries today. ? Works Cited â€Å"Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium and Other City Cultural Organizations Have Whale-Sized, Posit ive Impact on New York City Economy – Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS. org – Wildlife Conservation Society. 28 May 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. . Fountain, Henry. â€Å"In Zoo Cuts, It’s Man vs. Beast. † Nytimes. com. 17 Mar. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. . Fuller, Steven S. â€Å"The Economic Impact of Spending for Operations and Construction by AZA-Accredited Zoos and Aquariums. † Aza. com. Mar. 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. . â€Å"Houston Zoo’s Economic Impact Extends beyond Region, Study Says – Your Houston News: West University. † Your Houston News: Local Matters. 12 Aug. 2011. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. . Livingston, Guy. â€Å"The Economic Impact of The ZOO on the Northwest Florida Regional Economy. Uwf. edu. 15 Mar. 2004. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. . Luhby, Tami. â€Å"Zoo Animals Face Budget Knife. † CNNMoney – Business, Financial and Personal Finance News. 19 May 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. . McConnell, Campbell R. , Stanley L. Bru e, and Sean Masaki. Flynn. Macroeconomics: Principles, Problems, and Policies. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2009. Print. Mullen, William. â€Å"Lincoln Park Zoo Plans Cuts. † Chicago Breaking News. 14 Jan. 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. . â€Å"Zoo Impact: Tens of Millions of Dollars, Hundreds of Jobs – Newsroom. † Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick. 28 June 2011. Web. 08 Dec. 2011. .

Career Development Plan Part Iv - Compensation

Now that we have structured our new team, identified their roles, identified ways to manage their performance and created an appraisal system we are now proposing a new compensation plan. This part will outline the plan, describe how it will help motivate employee performance, describe our total rewards program and outline how this program will benefit the individual and InterClean. Account Executive Financial Compensation Plan Compensation structures can be broken down into two distinct categories, financial and non-financial (Cascio, 2006). This section overviews the financial compensation plan for account executives, which includes pay and benefits. Account executive pay will be primarily commission based. Each account executive will receive a base salary at minimum wage, with the rest of their salary coming from commission. We feel that a generous commission structure will motivate performance because pay will have a direct correlation with sales volume. We structured our proposed commission plan to reflect InterClean new strategic direction (University of Phoenix, 2007), and how employees are rated in their quarterly appraisal. This means a focus on retention, up-selling and volume. Account executives will receive 8% commission on sales for the first six-months of revenue. 10% commission on sales after six-months of continuous revenue. 13% commission on sales after one-year of continuous revenue. 13% commission on up-sells and account executives that meet their quarterly sales volume will also receive a bonus equaling 3% of total revenue earned. New Business Account Executive, The New Business Account Executive has different goals, and therefore a different pay scale will apply. He or she will receive a base salary of $30,000 per year, plus a 3% quarterly commission on revenues earned from the accounts he or she acquired. We feel that this structure will adequately reflect the difference between new account acquisition and account retention. Cumulatively, the maximum amount of commission paid on revenues to account executives would be 19%. In related to the benefits Account Executives will receive the standard benefits due to all InterClean employees, including; †¢ Health Insurance with employee share of cost †¢ 401k match 14 days paid vacation †¢ 6 days sick time †¢ Health, Financial, Stress and Motivational Counseling through our employee wellness program. Managerial Financial Compensation Plan The managerial financial compensation plan will focus on overall team performance. We feel that creating a plan that rewards managers for team performance helps ensure management’s focus on creating a strong team that meets financial objec tives. Managers will receive a base salary dependent on their pay grade, ranging from $50,000 annual for the solution expert and $65,000 annually for the sales manager. The rest of their salary will be based on team performance as 3% commission on total revenues per quarter of all account executives that have met his or her goal, and 2% on total revenues per quarter if all account executives meet their goals. We feel that paying based on meeting objectives, and sharing in total revenues accomplishes two important things such as rewards managers who ensure account executives meet their goals by providing the tools and support they need. And it encourages over-achieving by not setting a limit on revenue sharing. In terms of the benefits, managerial employees share in the aforementioned benefits, and are given one additional week of paid vacation (five days) per year. As mentioned, compensation does not only include financial compensation; there are certain non-financial rewards that motivate employee performance, increase loyalty and decrease turnover. The following non-financial rewards were chosen based on a survey conducted in the United Kingdom (Employee Benefits, 2006) as additional â€Å"perks† for employees. Sales Employees, All sales employees are eligible the following reward package flexible working arrangements. Employees can work at home when appropriate on dates arranged between them and their manager. Flexible work time is the top-rated non-financial reward in the UK survey (Employee Benefits, 2006) and offering such an arrangement can increase productivity by diminishing stress caused by work-life conflicts. And corporate gym membership also ranked high on the survey, and using our corporate pull to offer a free membership not only encourages wellness, but exercise has countless benefits such as stress relief, increased creativity, and energy. Also, we will include employee discount at restaurants. Using the promise of higher volume by internally promoting local restaurants to our employees, HR has arranged for employee discounts at local restaurants. This benefit decreases the costs of lunch for our employees and gives them another reason to value InterClean. Managerial Rewards, The following rewards are available to managers in addition to the preceding rewards available to all employees such as use of company vehicle: Surprisingly, the UK survey listed â€Å"sports car as company vehicle† as the number one â€Å"benefit they don’t receive but wish they had† (Employee Benefits, 2006, para4. . Company gas card, not only should our sales manager ride in prestige, but we understand that the majority of driving they do benefits our company, so they also have use of our company gas card. The compensation and rewards system outlined in this plan are geared to motivate performance by tying pay directly to the revenue gained for InterClean. Our new strategy of fo cusing on solution-based selling (University of Phoenix, 2007) means we must grow retention, up selling, and total volume. This plan rewards all three by reducing the base pay of account executives, increasing commission and tiering commission based on retention and up selling. We reward achievers and not low-performers. Tying managerial pay directly to the performance of the team rewards good managers (Vigoda-Gadot Angert, 2007. ) Finally, offering a substantial but not overly high base pay takes into account fluctuating economic and environmental constraints. Offering bonuses quarterly rather than annual avoids penalizing employees for one bad quarter, which can happen to even the best sales person. Finally, our reward system is built to make InterClean a great place to work, that values the employees well-being and offers perks as part of the job. Offering this reward system can help InterClean retain the best possible account executives and managers (Cascio, 2006). Because we offer competitive pay and creative rewards that ease the work-life conundrum, and add a certain level of prestige to those who work for InterClean.

Question about western world Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Question about western world - Essay Example The similarity between these immigrations was the large-scale arrival of Irish catholic immigrants in Canada and United States, which were protestant domains. The Irish immigrants provided the labour force needed in America and Canadian agricultural lands. It is evident that the United States adapted restrictive policies such as the Chinese exclusion act to prevent immigrants from getting into the United States (Diner 3). In Canada, immigrants were grouped in a descending manner with Italians, Irish, Jews, blacks and Chinese immigrants occupying the lower part of the series (thecanadianencyclopedia.com, â€Å"Immigration). The great western migration era in Canada corresponded to the flood migrations era in the United States. The immigrants in these eras were largely non-English speaking immigrants, and they were non-Protestants. The immigrants of these eras were pivotal in the industrial labour pool. The legislating immigration was adapted to control immigration into the United States. Canada also came up with medical provisions that restricted immigration into Canada. Such restrictions determine the number of immigrants who enter Canada and the United States. Free trade zones are determined geographically. Latin America and Caribbean account for 48% of worldwide Free Trade zones whereas Asia account for 42%. The Caribbean free trade zone employs 1.2 million workforces while the Asia free trade zone employs 3 million employees. The free trade zone promotes regionalism among the Caribbean countries. Williams observes that, without regionalism, the economic performance of the Caribbean countries is poor. Regionalism in the Caribbean will ensure free conversion of currencies to ease trade negotiations, free trade zones allow the free movement of individuals within the region this allows access to work. The free trade zone ensures the removal of implicit and explicit anti-export biases. The Caribbean countries also enjoy free access to

Quantitative decision theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Quantitative decision theory - Essay Example rgency plan, he directs the emergency response program and has the final decision and responsibility for the major decision relating to all aspects of emergency response. In case the president is absent, the provost has the authority to direct the emergency response until the president is available. The other key person in emergency response is the vice president of administration. He is responsible for damage assessment claim relationships with trinity’s insurance company and immediate oversight of facilities for any emergencies involving building and grounds. The building collapse and cause accident, the assessment will be carried out effectively. The most important role during emergency response is directing the emergency program by the president (Britten-Jones, 1999). He is the overall authority to give order to be followed by all the emergency personnel. Emergency response needs central command that can be best performed by the president. The other issues concern is assessment of damage. It determines the magnitude of the disaster and the kind of response it will need. If the disaster is severe it will need comprehensive and

Lincoln Presidency against that of Johnson Essay

Lincoln Presidency against that of Johnson - Essay Example Precisely the paper will argue out if the Lincoln administration was worthy of more praise than Johnson’s presidency. The first crucial policy enforcement that Lincoln is highly accredited for over his predecessors and successors was the Emancipation of Slaves who hugely consisted of African Americans. President Buchman, Lincoln, and Johnson all believed that the Constitution protected the institution of slavery (Jones, 1999). However, Lincoln alone understood that the constitution and the union that it had created would be preserved only by redefining the principles on which the country was cemented upon, such as all men are created equal. This led to the passing of the second confiscation act in 1862 in a move to weaken the rebellion that opposed Lincoln by freeing the slaves since most of the rebel leaders were slave owners. Furthermore, the emancipation declaration that Lincoln brought into effect was to free slaves even in states that were not under the union control. As one of Lincoln’s officials pointed out Lincoln was the first great man, who talked in the United States in a manner th at suggestively deemed that there was no difference between any two people, especially on the differences of color (Jones, 1999). In respect to domestic policies, Lincoln led to a myriad of substantial changes in the government policies that faced an impetus force of resistance. Lincoln created the first income tax in an attempt to finance the war and implemented military drafts that led to huge uproar and riots in the New York City. These and many other policies that Lincoln incorporated during his rule were meant to restore the union, which happened to be an overwhelming priority during his term. On the other hand, Johnson’s first priority was the restoration of the state and some of his notable contributions include, the halting of the construction of Bozeman trail.

DQ2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

DQ2 - Essay Example Job analysis is basically concerned with establishing the qualities and roles needed for an individual to perform the job and these range from qualifications, physical as well as mental capabilities. In the practice of HRM, this information is very useful as it would enable the recruiter to select the best candidate for the job from a pool of other applicants. Without detailed information about job analysis, it would be difficult to conduct job description which is very important in determining the position held by an employee as well as remuneration. If an employee is fully aware of the position he or she holds in the company, there would be less chances of confusion and duplication of duties since all the workers would be aware of the positions they hold within an organisation. The information gathered from a job analysis is very crucial in that it determines the value of a job within the organisation thereby allowing the management to make informed decisions in terms of compensation and benefits to the workers. Usually a salary that is commensurate with a person’s qualifications and skills is determined from information obtained from conducting a job analysis. The process of conducting a job analysis is also important in that it promotes good relations within an organisation. It often helps the organisation to be more objective in making performance appraisals as well as making informed decisions when employees are considered for promotion or even demotion. A well prepared job analysis is always advantageous in that it can help the employer to prove that any action that may be taken regarding employees would be legal. In most cases, decisions made from information obtained from a job analysis are often regarded as objective with little chances of b ias since they would be relying on practical data. 2. In recruitment of employees, there are

The cola market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The cola market - Essay Example As a new entrant in the market, Red Bull’s product for its new cola will only aim to cater and serve certain segments of the market. In order to know the market well, Red Bull has to segment its market carefully in order to assess which market segment should be chosen.The Red Bull brand has been associated with various lifestyles in the functional segment of the beverage market in the UK. Because of this existing association which is rooted from the lifestyle segment of the market, Red Bull’s new product can also use the lifestyle or psychographic segmentation for the cola market.According to Tom Duncan in his book â€Å"Principles of Advertising and IMC†, he defines psychographics as â€Å"measures that classify customers in terms of their attitudes, interests, and opinions as well as their lifestyle activities.† Since the Red Bull brand is positioned using the lifestyle segmentation of the market, the entry of its new product in the cola market can use t he lifestyle segmentation as well in order to make its product successful.The segment for the functional beverages has increased over the years due to the aging population of UK, as well as the shift to the more health-conscious products. With this, Red Bull has capitalized on the health-conscious segment of the market which looks for â€Å"regenerative and rejuvenating properties†.This strategic segment of the health-conscious group of consumers, according to Mad.co.uk (2008) will be entered by Red Bull with a â€Å"head to head on-trade† with Pepsico’s Pepsi Raw.

The Human Rights Act 1998 and Parliamentary Sovereignty Essay

The Human Rights Act 1998 and Parliamentary Sovereignty - Essay Example Although Section 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 provides for a limitation on the court’s power, in practice it appears as though it is the courts rather than Parliament that ultimately determines the extent to which human rights can be enforced and protected. 1 Section 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 provides that courts are required to interpret national legislation in such a way as to ensure that they are consistent with human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.2 However, in practice Parliament seemingly ceded parliamentary sovereignty relative to Convention rights to the judiciary. As Young notes, Section 3(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 â€Å"could have the same effect as if it impliedly repealed the provisions of all statutes† that are inconsistent with Convention rights.3 Some members of the judiciary have expressed concerns over how the judiciary’s enhanced role under the Human Rights Act 1998 can be applied in a manner that corresp onds with Parliamentary sovereignty.4 Goldsworthy however, argues that concerns about the Human Rights Act 1998 usurping Parliamentary sovereignty and introducing judicial sovereignty are unfounded. The Human Rights Act 1998 does confer unprecedented authority upon the judiciary in terms of interpreting statutes so as to render them consistent with Convention rights. At the same time, the Human Rights Act 1998 does not provide the judiciary with the authority to â€Å"disapply† or â€Å"invalidate† those statutes.... Lord Hope observed that: The rule of law enforced by the courts is the ultimate controlling factor on which our constitution is based.10 Therefore from Lord Hope’s perspective, Parliamentary sovereignty has evolved with the implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998 and has not altered the UK’s constitutional principles and values. Lord Steyn, however alludes to a dual sovereignty shared by the judiciary and Parliament as a result of the Human Rights Act 1998.11 Keene argues that the Judiciary under the deference principles implicit in the Human Rights Act 1998, attempts to strike a fair balance between individual rights and â€Å"the need to respect Parliament’s proper function†.12 This balancing act can be observed in the judgment of Laws LJ in International Transport Roth GmbH v Secretary of State for the Home Department. In this case Laws LJ set fourth four guiding principles for judicial application and interpretation of Convention rights under the a uthority permitted by the Human Rights Act. To begin with, the courts must give deference to Acts of Parliament rather than to executive or other official decisions and measures. Secondly, there will be no deference in instances when the Convention calls for a fair balance or where the rights under the Convention are absolute. Thirdly, where parliament will be given deference in instances where the manner is within their constitutional prevue and less deference will be given when the matter is within the judiciary’s constitutional prevue. Finally: Greater or less deference will be due according to whether the subject matter lies more readily within the actual or potential expertise of the democratic powers or the

Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry Essay Example for Free

Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry Essay The lost foam or expendable pattern-casting process is a relatively new process in commercial terms, but is gaining increased attention due to the environmental and technical benefits that are achievable for some types of casts. In the lost foam casting process, an expendable pattern is formed out of polystyrene foam. Patterns can be made manually, using automated systems or by molding those using a permanent die. Manual pattern making typically involves carving blocks and gluing sections together to build up the desired shape. The finished pattern is a single piece (i. e. no cores) incorporating all necessary gating systems. Process details and organizational: Lost foam casting is a type of investment casting process which uses foam patterns as the investment. This technique takes advantage of the properties of foam to plainly and inexpensively form castings that would be complicated or impossible, using normal cope and drag techniques. Why foam casting? In the world of metal casting, there are only three non-captive aluminum lost foam job shops exist, where the traditional process called sand casting remains at the top. But most of the companies could offer only with a lost foam facility. The manufacturers gives value-added castings, though the casting part might be initially more expensive, but the entire cost of the component, for the reason that of reduced or eliminated machining, less assembly and less of the other aspects, can make it more commercial for its customers. The green sand, permanent mold and die cast are lot of established processes but there is only handful of lost foam aluminum users. Even though the fact that there are only a small number of lost foam job shops across the country, some of the Irish and American Foam Cast still have to compete in the entire metal casting market. Due to the higher tooling costs than traditional casting the customers disregard lost foam strictly. Initially customers might be turned away by costs, but comparing to those cast by traditional methods certain lost foam components can be less-expensive. When estimating lost foam, with a total-cost point of view from design to finished component, customers save on unavoidable expenses in sand casting. Some of the customers were hesitant on utilizing lost foam because of its intricacies, when the Foam Cast drew in its first potential customers. But lost foam supplies the ability to design without interior while casting in geometry and features from the start. The lost foam can facilitate the staff to execute direct administration correctly over the casting process even with in the facility. Lost foam can also fabricate multiple parts to make one casting from thin to thick wall components independent of a riser. Advantages of Lost Foam Casting †¢ The lost foam casting can be used for precision castings of ferrous and non-ferrous metals independent of size. †¢ Compared to sand casting fewer steps are involved in lost foam casting †¢ In the foam casting system ‘Core making’ is eliminated. †¢ Binders or other additives and related mixing processes are eliminated. †¢ High dimensional accuracy can be achieved and thin sections can be cast (i. e. 3 mm). †¢ There is lower capital investment. †¢ The flasks used are less expensive and easier to use because they are in one piece. †¢ The need for skilled labor is reduced. †¢ Multiple castings can be combined in one mould to increase pouring efficiency. †¢ Lower operating costs can be achieved for appropriate castings. †¢ Complex castings, particularly internal sections, which require high dimensional accuracy and have thin sections, can be produced very cost effectively in comparison with to conventional sand molding processes. †¢ Fettling and machining is minimized due to high dimensional accuracy and the absence of parting lines or core fins. †¢ The shakeout process is simplified and does not require the heavy machinery required for bonded sand systems. †¢ High levels of sand reuse are possible. As little as 1-2% of the sand is lost as a result of spills. Periodically a portion of sand may need to be removed or reclaimed to avoid the build-up of styrene. Advantageous Productivity Areas of Lost Foam Process in Industry: ? Reduce Production Costs – The lost Foam process provides opportunity to reduce the labor as well as the content of energy and make other efficiency improvements must be pursued. As the activity based cost accounting approaches do the Lean manufacturing, six sigma and other concepts to progress operating efficiencies need to be practiced. Revolutionary technologies and process changes also should be investigated to achieve metal casting without the use of tooling. The industry should investigate the application and blending of statistical, shop floor layout, computer numerical control, and scheduling technologies to radically change the nature of EOQ’s, production release sizes, inventory levels, and delivery performance in metal casting plants. ? Reduce the Energy Content of Cast Products – In the lost foam system the energy consumption can be reduced by improving product quality thereby decreasing the scrap and melting requirements. The Improvements in equipment and process efficiencies can also save energy. The foam casting industry should build up a complete understanding of thermo physical behavior of alloys in melting, flow, and solidification as well as the capability to accurately simulate these behaviors. ? Waste Management – In the foam casting system, in order to enable increased reuse of foundry sand and other by-products and waste streams, more environmentally sound binders, and better emission treatment, the improvement in process are required. These Process improvements will also help to reduce scrap and thereby waste in casting processes. ? Reduced Labor Content of Cast Products –the current foam casting practices must be investigated in order to identify opportunities to decrease the number of steps in the process, develop and implement no-touch casting processes, and execute advanced information and control technologies. ? High-Quality, High-Performance Engineered Cast Components –the techniques to progress quality, precision and performance will result in fewer customer returns. The foam industry must develop an understanding of all process variation which affects the performance of castings in their applications; and develop process controls to ensure that variation is within allowable limits. Better performing products will also open new markets for metal castings. Tools are needed to capture digital, analog, or computer vision signals from all levels of the metal casting process to provide real time feedback about process status and to provide the ability to correct variances before they become product defects. The current status of Metal Casting Industry: According to Donahue â€Å"There have been significant advances from the past two years in aluminum lost foam, and yet domestic growth is almost non-existent†. The development have been made possible not because of a large group of lost foam metal casters but because of individual metal casters. According to Donahue, this influx of capital has contributed to advances in eight key areas of aluminum lost foam casting: * New types of foam which resists the folding and creating voids; * Improvement of the metal interface with sand by coatings; * Sand with low expansion rates that fill more quickly and completely; * More capable compaction systems; * reduced porosity through pressurized solidification; * Alloys that is more compatible with the filling process unique to lost foam; * modeling software; * gating advancements, such as hollow fiber sprues. Lean Manufacturing Lean Manufacturing is an operational strategy oriented achieving towards the shortest achievable cycle time by eliminating the waste. Its key thrust is to increase the value-added work by eliminating waste and reducing incidental work. The procedure often decreases the time between a customer order and shipment, and it is designed to radically improve profitability, customer satisfaction, throughput time, and employee morale. The advantages are lower costs, higher quality, and shorter lead times. The term lean manufacturing is invented to represent half the human effort in the organization, half the manufacturing space, half the investment in tools, and half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the time. Jones and Mitchell (2006) as cited in Clive Atkinson Dr Margaret Linehan suggests Four significant benefits that can be gained through the adoption of lean management to an organization. First, increased productivity with the same workers with the existing resource levels. Second, the Improvement of delivery of work within less time. Third, reduction of error or defects and improved quality. As a Fourth one, Improved Customer satisfaction derived from the improved staff morale and a stable workforce. The characteristics of lean processes are: 1. Single-piece production 2. Repetitive order characteristics 3. Just-In-Time materials/pull scheduling 4. Short cycle times 5. Quick changeover 6. Continuous flow work cells 7. Collocated machines, equipment, tools and people 8. Compressed space 9. Multi-skilled employees 10. Flexible workforce 11. Empowered employees 12. High first-pass yields with major reductions in defects Lean Manufacturing integrates the use of Heijunka, level sequential flow, the heartbeat or pace of the production system, continuous flow manufacturing, cellular manufacturing, and pull production scheduling techniques such as Kanban. The Lean module explores the 5 Principles: †¢ Value: it deals with –What the customer is willing to pay for. †¢ Value Stream: Actions which adds value to a product or process. †¢ Flow: The continuous movement of product, favoring single-piece flow and work cells versus production lines. †¢ Pull: Replacing only material that is used and eliminating excessive inventory. †¢ Strive for Perfection: A relentless elimination of waste on a never-ending basis. Applying Kaizen as a Tool of Lean Manufacturing Technique: Kaizen Event: This is a quick-hit method for Lean process improvement. This tool needs organizational learning and readiness for implementation and is a power tool to eliminate waste in the facilities of casting industry. . Tools: Kaizen Model Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means continuous improvement. It comes from the Japanese words kai which means change or to correct and Zen which means good. The Mixed model, one piece flow manufacturing can become a reality only when setup can happen in seconds. In these days several companies are doing mixed model assembly. Progressive automobile manufacturers use mixed model assembly methods to customize each vehicle as it comes down the line. The power of the approach presented in kaizen for quick change over is to help make it possible to do mixed modeling in production as well by making changeovers even faster. Kaizen is a system which involves every employee from superior management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity, it is a continuous process. These repeated small developments add up to major benefits. These will result in improved productivity, improved quality, better safety, faster delivery, lower costs, and better customer satisfaction. Above all of these benefits to the company, the employees working in Kaizen-based companies generally feels easier to work and more enjoyable resulting in higher employee moral and work satisfaction, and lower turn-over. With every employee looking for ways to make improvements, the expected results will be: Reduces Waste: In particular areas such as inventory management, waiting times, transportation, and worker motion, employee skills, over production, excess quality and in processes kaizen model will reduces wastage. Improvement: it improves in space utilization, product quality, use of capital, communications, production capacity and in the maintenance of employee. Kaizen Offer: It provides immediate results in the organization. Instead of focusing on large, capital intensive improvements, Kaizen focuses on creative investments which solve continually more number of small problems. Still the large and capital projects and major changes in that are needed; nevertheless kaizen improves the process of capital projects, the real power of kaizen is in the ongoing process of frequently making small improvements which develops the processes and reducing waste simultaneously. SMED SYSTEM: The other tool called SMED system is a process which makes possible to perform arrangement of equipment and changeover operations with in ten minutes, and is also used as an element of Total Productive Maintenance –TPM. Effects of 1. Forming of Implementation Team: The production employees/executors and professional team members, having responsibilities in their own sectors, represent the best alternative for team members. The purpose in implementing the 5S techniques is to enlarge the effectiveness through the development of knowledge and skills of the workers, and their responsibility. By this technique workers become more dedicated to their work; they are capable to understand appropriately the given situation and can take the correct decisions. Hence the implementation team members must act as a machine, production, tool and design technologist. 2. Training: The maintenance employees have to perform changeover team and machine setup has to be introduced into and qualified in implementing new methods and the procedures introduced into changeover procedures minimum once a week. Clarifying all the misunderstandings, training is forecasted to be done per team and questions as well as giving clear directions to enable faster and easier tool exchange (SMED). 3. Survey and screening of the situation prior to the method implementation Every changeover detail are recorded in video and complete work activity sequence is written down. Every move and every activity of the operator have to be recorded specifically, hence any unnecessary activity to attain even worse results. The same procedure recording should be done after implementing the method to establish the effectiveness in both applying the method and accomplishing the result (SMED). 4. Classification of Activity: In the classification of activity it is consists of the analysis of recorded material and the activities which can be divided into two groups: the internal and external ones. External activities are all the set up activities which can be performed while machine is in operation; where as the Internal set up activities are the ones that can be performed only if the machine is not in operation. The Internal activities refer to the dismantling of used tool, to the mounting of new ones and ascertaining communication in line of machine tool (SMED). 5. Transforming internal activities into external activities: The Transformation of internal activities into external activities is much possible. It is the most proficient procedure ever for decreasing machine outage rates (SMED). 6. Improvement of internal activities minimization – Set the tools visually, at the hand of operator (5S) – Using the connectors that may be rapidly exchanged for all tool power sources (5S) – Possible Usage of as many locating pins for accurate tool positioning. (SMED) – Cranes with sliding transporters (SMED) – Using of cranes for heavy tools only (SMED) – Using of standard tools as possible (SMED) 7. Improvement of External activities: – Placing visual markings for easier and faster identification (5S) – Using check list to prevent unpredictable events in resources preparation (5S) – â€Å"At hand† tool organization (5S) – Work place organization that decreases tool search time (5S) – Using appropriate tool preheating machine along with adequate device (SMED). 8. Forming and Standardization of the SMED procedures. 9. Saves quantification of savings reached by SMED. 10. CIP (Continuous Improvement Process) Applicability of Lean to Lost foam Industry: The five-step thought process for directing the implementation of lean techniques is easy to remember, but not easy to achieve: 1. By using the product family –the specification of value from the standpoint of the end customer. 2. Elimination of steps when necessary, that do not create value and identifying all the steps in the value stream for each product family. 3. Make the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence such that the product will flow smoothly toward the customer. 4. As flow is introduced, permit customers to pull value from the next upstream activity. 5. As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created without any waste. There are several approaches an organization must take to meet the desired goal. Here, are some outlined tips to ensure a continuous lean transformation. 1. Identifying the company’s cultural model: Culture answers the question of how do we do things around here? and is actually the accumulation of leadership behaviors. Any organization which is serious about becoming lean needs to identify its cultural model and determine how to close the gap from the current cultural state to the ideal future cultural state. Once the base of improvement action works to build new principles, values and behaviors into the organization, then the ideal culture aspired to and begin to work on organized progress toward that ideal state is to defined. In the end, the organizations culture determines the ultimate success of any lean transformation. 2. A process improvement culture should be build: After identifying this model, a culture that practices process improvement should be build as part of daily life. Changing from a reactive culture to a process-improvement culture requires embracing an opposite approach. 3. Establishing a practice of leadership involvement The senior leadership committed to lean improvement only to drop off after the implementation gets started. Bringing leaders to the point where they recognize how to seek out waste before removing it drives the success of lean transformation. 4. Continually engage in rapid improvement events The most effective way a manager or manufacturing engineer learns how to apply lean tools and concepts is through participation in the initial week-long improvement event. The next step is to establish a series of these events as you develop new processes and uncover additional areas of waste, which will help you incorporate lean into every aspect of the business. Effects of Improving Productivity in Lost Foam Industry: Metal Casting industries that apply Lean manufacturing principles can be seen improvements in the following areas: †¢ Reduced Manufacturing Lead Time to less than 1 day †¢ Improved Delivered Quality – The defect rate is reducing to Six SIGMA level which is 3 Parts Per Million †¢ Improved Delivery Performance to 99+% †¢ Increased Inventory Turns to greater than 50 turns per year †¢ Reduced conversion costs on materials to finished goods is to 25 – 40% which is less than mass producers †¢ Reduced Manufacturing space to 35 – 50% which is less than mass producers †¢ Reduces New product development rate to less than 6 months References: Clive Atkinson Dr Margaret Linehan, An Analysis of Lean Management Procedures within Irish Motor Dealerships: International Journal of Buisnessand Management Vol . 3, No. 11, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://ccsenet.org/journal/index. php/ijbm/article/viewFile/894/849 Dennis Sowards, Lean Thinking is not a Fad Diet, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. masetllc. com/news/pdfs/0306-1. pdf Lean management practices in the pharmaceutical industry Heiko Gebauer, Michael Kickuth, Thomas Friedli International Journal of Services and Operations Management 2009 Vol. 5, No. 4 pp. 463 – 481 Kaizen, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. graphicproducts. com/tutorials/kaizen/kaizen-benefits. php Lost-foam casting, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www.reference. com/browse/wiki/Lost-foam_casting Modern casting, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://goliath. ecnext. com/coms2/gi_0199-3666396/Finding-a-niche-with-lost. html Lost Foam Foundries find Energy-Saving Opportunities, Retrieved July 18, 2009, from http://www. foundrymag. com/feature/feature/67804/lost_foam_foundries_find_energysaving_opportunities Hobert E. Eppicch, Implementa tion ofMetal Casting Best Practices, Retrieved July 28, 2009, from , http://www1. eere. energy. gov/industry/metalcasting/pdfs/implementation_final. pdf

Education: The Social Institution | Research

Education: The Social Institution | Research Introduction Education is one of social institution that makes society and the country sustainable and development. With education, people acquire knowledge, skills, habit, value, and morality, and attitude (Roth Hok, 2004, p 3). It provides the country workforce in order to meet the challenge of globalization of today competitive economic and technological development. Accordance with the needs above, each country try to build up quality of education, enlarge and widespread the educational building centers, schools and universities everywhere in the country. Moreover, they provide the chance to those who want to work on the educational sectors which aspect as private sector or organization. Additionally, the educational institution tries to reform and generate more method, structure or other techniques to improve the educational system. There are four functions of education: enculturation, qualification, allocation and legitimation (Historical Root Document) in which each function plays very imp ortant role and works in deferent aspect that education become more and more effective. In order to stabilize and develop the country more effectively, legitimation is one of the most important functions, which have been applying actively in education. In term of educational aspect, legitimation is the tool to establish and link the people in society. It provides norm, values and ideology to stabilize the political power and also cultural and social identity (Historical Root Document). Cambodia is one of the developing countries which has just emerged from the war that the education had been distracted to almost zero. According to Mr. Heng stated that Having passed four years of the barbaric genocidal regime of the Pol Pot- Ieng Sary clique our infrastructure in the domain of education and teaching is completely shattered. (Ayres, 2003). Now it has been struggling very hard to become the developed country by focusing much on the education as the main sector that education in term of legitimation has been applied more potentially in the Cambodian context in order to stabilize, nationalize the nation as a whole. Research Questions What is the main factor to shape the curriculum in Education? How did the education curriculum in PRK and later apply the social and national vision to the citizens? How effective have the education system work in conceptualize the citizen for stabilizing the country? Education in Cambodia in term of Legitimation In Cambodia, from one period to another, the curriculum has been changed and reformed steadily in order to modernize and get a better quality to fulfill the need of society within the Cambodian context. The curriculum has been set and assimilated the ideology to the young Cambodian to be harmony, peace, stability and feeling of loving nation and society and also supports and serves their political power. On the other hand, curriculum has policies to correct and encourage the students to learn more and understand their obligation as students to respect the school regulations and laws, avoid committing the crime in society that is unacceptable. Additionally, the curriculum has provided them how to be good citizens, know their national identity, love the national culture, think critically and live together peacefully. According to the curriculum the students are provided to learn the subjects that tell about the way of living, the way to speak, dress, stand, sit, and walk, it also provi des norms, value and persuade the young Cambodians to love and protect their own national heritage; moreover, the information the students get is to follow and support the government context that the nation become stability, prosperity and successful development. (Policy for Curriculum Development, 2005-2009) General goal of curriculum in term of legitimation The goals and aims of education are to develop human resources mentally, emotionally, and physically. It provides the learners to gain the real life experience in society. It also provides the learners to understand the value of education that is limited by the royal government. In reforming of educational system, the students can solve the faced problem in their life such as aids, traffic, domestic violence, human right, climate change, protect the environment, reduce the poverty and other conflicts in community and also the country. Education can erg all the learners to think about economics, religion, controversial land, governments concession land. When the learners understand about these problems they can work out these peacefully. As we know, when we reform the educational system, it usually effects both government and learners such as the government spend a lot of budgets and the learners are difficult to adapt with new programs. But we must reform it to progress better in cou ntry as well as in the religion. A good education gives the learners to get high knowledge to reply the need of ministries, departments, companies, enterprises, organizations and other institutions. If they get well paid job, they will help themselves, their families and country. When the learners are educated from schools with good curriculums, they will become very well educated persons who are very important asset in their society. Moreover, they can attract investors to invest in their community and also the country. One country has rapid development; it is because of the high knowledgeable learners. It is necessary cant be lake of them. (Research in Post-Compulsory Education, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998) In PRK period In the period of People Republic Kampouchea regime, the government was in left with nothing in the hands as well as the education system. (Arys, 2000) With the official government was empty idea related to the education theory and practices, most of them were in the army sectors. In addition to this, the influence of cold war in the current flow of world power between Russia and the United State (Nayan Chanda, 2007) led to spread the ideology of socialism which affected on Cambodia government in education curriculum. However the new educational program had been announced officially in on July 30, 1979 in the PRK. The system had been put an effect by Heng samrin. The new educational structure had been replaced by the administration of Vietnamese and French educational practice. The primary school course had been divided into two three-year cycle prior to 1975, was reduced into four grade, secondary school six years to maximum three years cycle. The ten years structure and ascending nu mbering system followed the denote school grades, were very similar to those Vietnamese. Another feature of the system which the same as Vietnameses was the decentralized control. Provincial education committees were vested with a high degree of responsibility for making decision. (Ayres, 2003) In that way, education is to protect and build the Peoples Republic of Cambodia in to socialist country, (Ayres, 2003), so in the period the education is provided to the people in order to stabilize the country and improve the political power. After PRK period 1990s After the election in 1993, The Cambodia constitution has rehabilitation plans, the strategies of MoEYS, the strategies of socioeconomic, and the real national situation the education reform policy had been accepted by the education system development committees as the following: The general education system from grade 11 to 12 years added 1year to primary school that the formula is 6+3+3, which is 6 years in primary school, 3 years in secondary school 3 years in high school. They also increase up 6 hours per day in order to get the international standard of 5,000 hours in which one class period 45 minutes in primary school and 50 minutes in secondary school. There 6 subject areas in primary and 8 subjects in secondary school include foreign subjects (English or French) grade 5 in primary school upward. (UNESCO statistical yearbook, 1999) The goal of curriculum has been set to increase the quality of general education and adept with the globalization in order to easy to learn and teach more effectively that the students and teacher become very skillful and they can work very well and effectively in the class as they have expected to get high standard knowledge. (The effect of curriculum type on middle grade instruction, Vol. 5 pp.201). The curriculum has also helped them to learn thing which is fit to their ability to the situation in their own society as well as their family, community, and help next generation to love their own nation and people. Moreover the curriculum helps them to build up their capacity to improve the policy and develop their country. The curriculum can correct their habits how to live and work in their country peacefully. Thus they can be very important asset to work more effectively to develop the nation and liberal pluralistic democracy. (Policy for Curriculum Development, 2005-2009) Conclusion In conclusion, as I mentioned above, it is important to reform the educational system for all the learners. I deeply believe for good curriculums can drive the learners and country to grow up sharply. If in one country has lots of good learners, the country will develop faster. For example, the Unites State of America. This country is over 200 years old, but they develop all fields. If we compare with Cambodia, it is so far different. It shows that human resources from study with good curriculums help to improve all the fields in their country. The important of curriculums help the learners improve them to think about the problems properly such as social issue, family economics, land conflict, domestic violence, aids, traffic, human right, children right and other things the learners understand about climate change, environment issue, traditions, cultures, religion relieve and understand universal laws. In my ideas, I think that good curriculums are important for the learners to reac h and achieve their goals in their life. A good curriculum can lead the learners to do the right thing and they become good citizens, leaders in the future. Additionally, good curriculums help all the learners do and think something correctly that society and human being recognize. Totally, the reforming of curriculums drives the learner to love their people, culture, costume, national treasure, environment, government, leaders, and their country. (Policy for Curriculum Development, 2005-2009)

The Tempest as Shakespeares Resignation Speech -- Tempest essays

The Tempest as Shakespeare's Resignation Speech      Ã‚  Ã‚   In Shakespeare's, The Tempest, the character Prospero is in many ways similar to Shakespeare himself at the time he wrote the play.   Prospero, having entertained himself with his magic for most of his life, now gives up his powers as he seems to understand that his magic is no more and no less than life itself :   it is just as transitory and hollow.   This seems to reflect on Shakespeare's attitude toward play writing.   Having spent his life writing plays and being entertained by his own employment, Shakespeare finds that his plays, while they explore the themes of life and relationship, are finally no more meaningful than life itself seems to a man who must have been feeling his mortality.   The Tempest is Shakespeare's resignation speech.   Having found that his 'magic' has failed him, Shakespeare is retiring to the real world, for if nothing of meaning is to be gained in play writing, then all that is left is to be human.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   First, look at Prospero's final decision in the play.   He is capable of returning to Milan and ruling it while keeping his magical power - he does not have to choose between the two - and he abandons his power.   Just as Shakespeare was not forced to quit writing, Prospero is not forced to abandon his magic.   In addition, Shakespeare specifically has Prospero tell us : "My charms crack not, my spirits obey, ..." ( V.i 2 ).   Shakespeare means to tell the audience he is not quitting because his ability as a writer is lessening at all, but specifically tells us through Prospero that he is at his peak and is completely in command of his art.   There is no other obvious thematic or plot-development reason why Prospero should specifically ... ...total lack of morality, or Hotspur's view of absolute honor, had some doubt to it, or could be thought of differently.   Prospero's argument here is irrefutable.   Nothing he presents is in any way 'iffy' or doubtable.   This is Shakespeare's final conclusion : plays, like life, fade into nothing, and nothing is left worth doing but to be what we are: human, and mortal.    Works Cited and Consulted:    Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare's The Tempest. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1997.    Davidson, Frank. "The Tempest: An Interpretation." In The Tempest: A Casebook. Ed. D.J. Palmer. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1968. 225.    Shakespeare, William, 1998.   The Tempest.   Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998    Webster, Margaret. Shakespeare Without Tears. Greenwich: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1996.

Illegal Drugs :: essays research papers

Illegal Drugs   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The product is illegal drugs. The people who deal these drugs are criminals. That's what makes the drug business different then any other.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *Alcohol is a drug, yet adults are allowed to use alcohol products.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *Nicotine is a drug, yet adults are allowed to use many different forms of tobacco products, all   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  which have tobacco in them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *The drug Caffeine can be found in many everyday items, like soda candy bars. Think of how   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  many cops we would need if caffeine products were illegal. Why are drugs like cocaine,marijuana and heroin illegal? Cocaine, marijuana and heroin are illegal because most people think that these controlled substances are simply to dangerous for anyone to use. They the effects of thes substances ruin the body and mind so badly and quickly that no one should try them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  We have law aginst drug is so that the people who use dangerous drugs are putting themselves at a very high risk. They risk their health and their lives. Since they are breaking laws they also but themselves at the risk of getting arrested. They risk their freedom and their future all for drugs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Each year drug use is the cause of a large number of accidents at home in the office and on the road. Everybody pays the price of drug abuse: more cops and prisons more hospitols and treatment centers and many lives lost.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  But drug users hurt themselves more than anybody because they are supporting violent crimes in the drug world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Just by using drugs they become part of that drug world. They are already commiting acrime. But the relationship between drug use and crime often means that drug users go on to commit crimes like robbery,burglary,assult, and murder.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Drug addiction means that the brain is saying I need drugs now it must have drugs. This offten means that addicts commit crimes to get money for drugs.Studies show that drug use increases criminal behavior:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *64% of violent crimes involve someone on drugs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *75% Of prison inmates have a drug use history. *24% of addicts start dealing drugs to support their habit. Studies also show that drugs play a big part in youth and crime:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *more than 83% of youth in prison have used drugs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *40% of youth in prison for serious crimes were on drugs at the time of the crime.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  *More than 40% of youth in prison used drugs befor the age of 12.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Armed patrols Search and destroy missions and helicopter surveillance. Sounds like americans at war, well this goes on every day on our own home soil and the battle fields are our national parks and forests and the enemy is

The National Health Services Essay -- Health, Insurance

The National health services (NHS) provides a comprehensive healthcare services across the entire nation. It is considered to be UK’s proudest institution, and is envied by many other countries because of its free of cost health delivery to its population. Nevertheless, it is often seen as a ‘political football’ as it affects all of us in some way and hence everyone carry an opinion about it (Cass, 2006). Factors such as government policies, funding, number of service users, taxation etc all make up small parts of this large complex organisation. Therefore, any imbalances within one sector can pose a substantial risk on the overall NHS (Wheeler & Grice, 2000). This essay will discuss whether the NHS aim of reducing the nations need for provision of health was achieved or not, taking into account different health models. The concept of NHS came into power from 5th July 1948. Although, Bevan who had this ideology of ‘welfare state’ was successful in architecting NHS. In fact, the need for such a consolidation of service provision was initially identified in 1919 by the Dawson Committee report (Christopher, 2004). The state in which healthcare system operated before1948 was incomprehensive, full of inequality and even lacked in providing minimum adequate standards to the general public. The people living in poverty and on Low income (working class) were affected the most; whereas, rich families were able to afford the healthcare services adequately. The health insurance was provided under the National Insurance Act 191, but was only available to the workers, whereas, their dependants (wife and children’s) were excluded. Therefore, every time they used the services they were required to pay for it. Thus, because most... ...are immense, as it has only finite resources to use, but needs its services to be clinically effective as well as able to meet the needs of individual’s, their choice of preferences and be value for money. To accomplish this NHS will need to harness more securely its investment in surveillance, analysis and budgets, and therefore establishing a framework that would than serve and provide a better health outcome to the entire nation. Lastly, UK spends about half of what is spent by the US (about 14 % of GDP) on its healthcare, yet in US out of 250 million over 30 million citizens are still without health care provision. Thus, despite such a massive expenditure by US government, failure to provide basic health care to millions of its citizen is not overcome, however, that is certainly not the case in UK (Bilton, et al., 2002; Christopher, 2004; Smith I. , 2007).

Continental/Fintelco Jv Case Analysis Essay

1. Is entry into the Argentine market a good strategic move for Continental? Entering Argentine market in 1993-1994 was a good strategic decision for Continental as one of the TOP5 cable TV companies in the US despite certain risks for several reasons: 1. Changes in the US regulatory environment created additional challenges for Continental’s core business: 1992 Cable Act limited the cable TV companies’ ability to raise cable rates whereas costs at market prices reached up to $2000/subscriber. This inevitably led to constrained profit margins 2. US market began saturating: long-standing competition on the market coupled with growing demand and consumer selectivity has led to further squeezing margins and forced companies to seek for diversification of revenue streams –by entering non-traditional cable markets, capturing smaller niches, or expanding overseas. 3. Argentine cable TV marked lagged in behind US market by almost a decade: cable TV penetration barely re ached 50%, subscription growth rates approached 60-70% in selected areas. Also, the market was only beginning to consolidate around 4 major players – more than 50% of the market was controlled by a thousand of smaller operators. Although Buenos Aires was relatively more mature market, other regions and provinces presented lucrative opportunities. Telephone, satellite, and other adjacent markets had untapped future opportunities. So far, emerging Argentine promised much brighter prospects for cable TV companies than saturating US. 4. Argentine macroeconomic indicators exhibited positive dynamics despite high level of uncertainty: indeed, after a decade of political turmoil and military rule Argentine was finally building a democratic civilian government. During four years preceding the acquisition, Carlos Menem and Domingo Cavallo launched effective economic and political reforms, including deregulation and privatization in TMT and other major sectors. In particular, legislation became very favorable to foreign investors. However, Argentine was suffering from hyperinflation and chronic recessions during the previous decade. Moreover, political risks were becoming more and more tangible as presidential elections of 1995 approached. As a result, the beta for Argentine was two times as high as that for the US. Is Fintelco an appropriate venture partner? Fintelco possessed at least three characteristics of a good venture partner: a. Knowledge of local market including cultural, political, and regulatory background as well as customer programming tastes. Basically, buying a successful incumbent is one of the best potential moves while entering â€Å"terra incognita† b. Fintelco had strong presence in various regions and owned licenses in MDDS and satellite, which created solid base for revenue streams diversification and future growth. c. Fintelco was still owned and managed by its founder, a prominent serial entrepreneur with diversified assets. Liberman had a very hands-on approach in business, and thus secured complete alignment of incentives between the management and the owners. 2. What are the major opportunities and risks you see in the venture? Success factors and opportunities (excluding market opportunities mentioned above): a. Personal and professional â€Å"click† between Samuel Liberman and Amos Hotsetter indicated good potential for constructive and conflict-free partnership. b. Similar growth strategies and vision: both companies grew using clustering strategy and capturing operating efficiencies by consolidating subscribers geographically. c. Limited access to capital markets in Argentine: Continental had access to capital markets in the US which could significantly foster business development in a country with scarce financial resources. Risks&Concerns: a. Active involvement of Fintelco’s founder and owner in business operations has also created certain problems. For instance, it resulted in a sort of nepotism – many key positions were held by Liberman’s direct relatives. Thus, potential restructuring and changes in management would be complicated. Also, after an acquisition Liberman would have 50% ownership, which could decrease his involvement in this particular business and also led to incentives misalignment. Indeed, he had diversified businesses and could have been looking for a cash-out. Liberman’s full involvement and commitment were crucial for joint venture success. b. Fragmented regional market in Argentine commanded inorganic expansion trajectory for Fintelco, which in turn required capital commitment from both parties. A ceiling should have been established to limit uncontrollable capital pump and its inefficient allocation. c. Exchange rate risks: significant portion of revenue stream born currency exchange risk (peso vs. USD) regardless of geographical and product diversification. These risks were absolutely external and thus could have been hardly mitigated. 3. One could value Fintelco in either of the following ways: a. Peso cash flows discounted at peso rate and then value converted at the spot rate b. $US flows discounted at $US rate Which approach is more appropriate in this case? We analyzed assumptions required to adopt each of proposed approaches. Approach (b) – $US cash flow discounted at $US rate – assumes that: (1) Peso/$US rate would remain constant – despite stable projection of peso exchange rate till 1998, PPP implied exchange rate has a high range (0.999-1.436, 44%) and hence significant volatility. (2) $US discount rate reflects the risk of the project – As revenues of Fintelco are denominated in pesos while a significant portion of its liabilities, including interest expense and a portion of programming costs, would be denominated in $US, the project bears significant currency risk which is not reflected by US discount factor. Although the real currency of the industry in Argentina is in local currency Peso, we believe that finding a proper discount rate in Peso is quite tough and unreliable. Moreover discounting the Peso valuation with today’s exchange may be a biased approach. Hence what we prefer Ä ±s to conv ert the Peso cash flows to USD with the estimated USD/Peso rates for each period and then discount it with the US$ discount rate. 4. Is $80m for a 50% interest a fair value for Fintelco? Based on our valuation we believe that $80m for a 50% interest is a fair value for Fintelco. In our valuation we chose to be conservative with the assumptions as well as try to cover all possible risks and ran multiple iterations to obtain a good understanding of the value ranges. Our valuation is based on the following assumptions: (1) WACC of 15.35% calculated used 9.01% as Rd (BB rating), D/V ratio of 14.44% (current Balance sheet), Re of 17.07% (Lessard model) and tax rate of 40% (Exhibit 1). Beta was estimated using comparable companies (Exhibit 2). We recognize that D/V ratio as well as Return on Equity is subject to our judgment hence we assessed sensitivity of WACC to change in these assumptions. We estimated Re using 4 different models (Exhibit 3) and D/V at the level of comparable companies. WACC ranges between 10.77% and 17.19% (Exhibit 4). We believe that 15.35% is an adequate estimation of WACC reflecting both country and project risks. (2) Terminal growth of 4% based on our view of sustainability. We noticed that Fintelco’s projections imply 7% revenue growth however we do not believe that such high level of growth is sustainable in the long run, hence we suggest more conservative estimation. (3) Conversion to $US based on parity-implied exchange rates for 10yrs. We believe that due to difference in US/Argentina inflation rates over the long horizon only PPP-implied exchange rate reflects true value of money at any given point in time. We used it to convert annual peso free cash flows at the respective rate (Exhibit 5); We calculated terminal value using 2002 $US DCF value and Gordon Growth formula and arrived at Enterprise Value. We further subtracted net debt converted @1994 exchange rate to arrive to Equity Value in $US (Exhibit 6). We also calculated $US value based on spot rates (both official and PPP-implied) to assess sensitivity of the model (Exhibit 7) and concluded that our estimation is reasonably conservative and reflects country’s currency risk adequately. (4) 30% private penalty discount – as Fintelco is a private company, we discount its value further for 30% to account for lack of liquidity. Exhibit 8 contains the summary of our valuation under different scenarios. We concluded that though there are scenarios under which value of 50% share of Fintelco is below $80m, probability of these scenarios occurring is fairly low. Our base case scenario uses Lessard’s model for Return on Equity calculations, PPP-implied 10 years forecasted exchange rate and 30% private penalty discount (result highlighted). 5. In the course pack there is a reading (Estrada (2007)) about valuing offshore projects using techniques proposed by Lessard, Godfrey and Espinosa, Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney. What assumptions underlie each approach? The reading Estrada 2007 describes four models for evaluating investment opportunities in developing markets. Each model estimates a required return on equity by attempting to incorporate country and/or project-specific risk. Unlike the CAPM, none of these models has reached the level of standard-bearer in the finance community, and each rests on critical assumptions that must be considered before using them in a project assessment: The Lessard Approach: R = Rf + MRP*(ÃŽ ²p* ÃŽ ²c) * Assumes that the country beta is a good approximation of country-specific risks (political, sovereign, and expropriation) * Assumes that the risk of a project is not related to the risk of the country (e.g., ÃŽ ²p for oil industry may be low, but should be high for a country which has a history of expropriation) * Assumes that investors do not value the effect of global diversification that the project would bring the company The Godfrey and Espinosa Approach: R = (Rf + YSc) + MRP* [0.60*(ÏÆ'c/ ÏÆ'w)] * Assumes that the yield spread, which measures default risk, is an appropriate risk premium to capture sovereign risk associated with an offshore project * Applies a value (60%) that reflects the average risk reflected by the stock market but not the bond market across all developing markets, thus ignoring country-specific correlations * Assumes that the project’s risk is solely dependent on location. It does not factor project or industry-specific risk Goldman Sachs: R = (Rf + YSc) + MRP* [1- Ï SB * (ÏÆ'c/ ÏÆ'w)] * Assumes that the yield spread, which measures default risk, is an appropriate risk premium to capture sovereign risk associated with an offshore project * Assumes that the project’s risk is solely dependent on location. It does not factor project or industry-specific risk Salomon Smith Barney: R = Rf + MRP* ÃŽ ²p + [{Ï’1 + Ï’1 + Ï’3)/30]*YS * Assumes that three factors can be measures on a scale from 1 to 10 in a robust and consistent way: the company’s access to capital markets, susceptibility of project to political risk, and financial importance of project to the company) 6. Would you suggest any modifications to the structure of the deal? The structure of the transaction described in the case is to form a joint venture. Continental will: c. Purchase 50% of equity stake in Fintelco for USD 80 million. d. Commit to provide USD 70 million of capital for acquisitions and investments in technology upgrade at Fintelco. Samuel Liberman undertakes to provide another USD 70 million for the investments. e. Fintelco will bear a significant currency risk on its balance sheet, as its revenues are in peso, but liabilities, interest expense and programming costs are in US dollars. f. Continental will provide technical assistance to Fintelco on cost basis. g. The deal contained an exit agreement, the so called â€Å"shotgun deal†, whereby after four years the partners could sell to each other our trigger an outright sale to the third party. The terms of the transaction are in our opinion fair for both parties. When being a financial advisor of Continental, we would suggest: * That the commitment to invest USD 70 million in the target company is stated clearly, structured with limited recourse to the new shareholder to prevent undertaking a blanco commitment to invest capital. * Share purchase agreement between Continental and Samuel Liberman contains certain clauses about representations and warranties of both parties to mitigate the risk of financial loss in case of â€Å"window dressing† of the target company. * Shotgun clause to contain more substance over the price of the transaction in the future, giving a call and a put option to both contractual counterparties: * If one party will not wish to sell in the future at a certain price, it will undertake to purchase 50% shares in the target company from the other party at the price it declined to sell at.

Irony in the Scarlet Letter Essay

â€Å"Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge. † When reading a story, the events that have already presented themselves, lead a person to perceive what is going to happen, but when that person encounter an unexpected event, as commonly experienced through irony, it changes what the person perceives is going to happen. The Scarlet Letter exemplifies this use of irony to challenge truth. Hawthorne provides details about a specific character, but then creates an event which stands in contrast to these details. Hawthorne’s uses irony, portrayed through characters’ names, the first scaffold scene, and the Puritan community, to express the truth throughout the novel. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses characters’ names to contrast to their actual characteristics. He uses the name Pearl, which means purity, as a nickname for a mischievous character. He portrays Roger Chillingworth as a doctor, while Chillingworth’s main purpose involves causing the deterioration of Arthur Dimmesdale’s health. Arthur Dimmesdale, a saint-like figure to the Puritan Community, indulges in a great sin. Being a minister, his life elucidates hypocrisy. He has committed one of the greatest sins that he condemns in his sermons. Hawthorne uses these evident labels to contrast to character’s true characteristics. The scaffold scenes each reveal a truth through use of irony. The first scaffold scene connotes not only a connection between Hester and Dimmesdale, but also Dimmesdale’s wishes in regard to their sin. At the beginning of the novel, while the reader’s main question involves Pearl’s father, Hawthorne asides other characters by emphasizing Dimmesdale’s questioning of Hester. This emphasis exposes Dimmesdale as the prime suspect to be Pearl’s father. Dimmesdale speaks curiously in third-person about what Pearl’s father should do. He also stresses that Hester should tell who she had an affair with, and that her partner will accept being exposed, as if trying to convince her that he wants to be revealed but is to scared to do so on his own. This event causes irony, as the focus on Dimmesdale and Hester in this scene foreshadows their relations later in the novel. Hawthorne portrays the Puritan Community as a body that lacks the ability to recognize truth, while their ideals involve creating a â€Å"city upon a hill† that has achieved the ultimate truth. When Roger Chillingworth arrives in Boston, the community falsely believes that he has been sent from God to cure Arthur Dimmesdale. When Chillingworth wishes to house with Dimmesdale, few question Chillingworth’s intent. Even as they see Dimmesdale’s worsening condition, few blame it on Roger Chillingworth. The community also fails to recognize Dimmesdale’s attempts to confess his sin. In his sermons, Dimmesdale states that he is â€Å"altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest† and that he should be â€Å"shriveled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the Almighty. The community, still believing that he has not committed any serious sin, thinks of him even the higher. The community’s inability to recognize evil characters and sin overshadows their wishes to perceive the ultimate truth. Characters’ names, the first scaffold scene, and the Puritan Community act as a means of expressing truth through Hawthorne’s use of irony. Hawthorne provides evident details on characters, allowing the reader to obtain truth through an ironic event. Hawthorne meets the quote in the beginning by the requirement that irony should regard every simple truth as a challenge.

China’s Crackdown On Tibet

Since 1951, when Chinese rule over Tibet was established, Beijing has tried hard to stifle Tibetan culture, religion, and language (Demick, 2008a). In 1959, Chinese troops brutally suppressed a failed Tibetan uprising against China which resulted in the flight of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, and tens of thousands of Tibetans to India where they proclaimed a government-in-exile (Demick, 2008b). Despite the central government’s heavy investments in Tibet’s infrastructure and support of the region’s tourism industry for the last decade which led to a 14% GDP growth rate in 2007 and the emergence of a new middle class in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, the recent economic achievements failed to win Tibetans’ loyalty to Beijing. More and more Han Chinese, the country’s majority population, have come to the region in recent years making up approximately 50% of Lhasa population and being the true beneficiaries of economic growth. Tibetans also oppose the hardline policies adopted by the local party leader, Zhang Qingli, aiming at restricting religious influence on the population and undermining the authority of the Dalai Lama who is revered in Tibet (Trashing the Beijing Road). Mid-March protests in Tibet The last month protests in Tibet were sparked on March 10th by three hundred or so monks in Lhasa staging a peaceful demonstration to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 revolt against Chinese rule and urging the government to set free imprisoned colleagues. Protests continued on March 14th shortly after two monks had been beaten by police officers. These demonstrations by hundreds of Buddhist monks and local Tibetan residents turned violent and resulted in clashes with the police forces and burning of shops owned by Han Chinese residents. Protests quickly spread to the monasteries of Ganden, Drepung, and Sera, â€Å"Page # 2† and also took place in Amdo province where the Dalai Lama had been born (Magnier, 2008a). Thousands of people also attacked a local police station, vandalized several police cars, and raised Tibet’s national flag, banned by the Chinese government. At least ten people were reported to be killed in Lhasa as a result of rioting and clashes there. On March 15th, the rebellion erupted also in the holy city of Xiahe. (Magnier, 2008b). The police forces surrounded the area and ordered foreigners to evacuate the region. The demonstrations were dispersed, many Tibetan monks and residents beaten and arrested. By March 17th, despite the presence of Chinese security forces deployed to the region, the rioting spread to Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai provinces, areas with considerable ethnic Tibetan populations, and resulted in eighty deaths (Demick, 2008b). The government selected media images and stories for broadcasting in order to describe Tibetans and Buddhist monks as the aggressors and the Chinese state as a victim and, thus, succeeded in winning sympathy and support among the Han Chinese. Beijing accused the Dalai Lama and his self-proclaimed government-in-exile of being the mastermind behind the riots in Tibet and portrayed the protests as a conflict between the Chinese and the Tibetans stirring up feelings of anger and fear among the former and appealing to their nationalist sentiments (Magnier, 2008c). The Dalai Lama, by contrast, called for nonviolence but he admitted at a conference in Dharamsala, India, attended by many foreign journalists that he was powerless to stop the riots as Tibetans, being fed up with Beijing repressive regime, have became more and more violent and radicalized (Demick, 2008b). Methods such as telephone tapping, Internet filtering, and travel restrictions were used by the security units to block any information or news about the rioting and its suppression. Chinese press also criticized foreign journalists accusing them of distorting the facts about the rioting in Tibet and of exaggerating the brutality with which they were suppressed. On March â€Å"Page # 3† 26th, Beijing officials selected some two dozen foreign journalists that were allowed to visit Lhasa for the first time after the events there to show the damage caused by Tibetans (Welcome to the Olympics). Beijing’s dilemma Tibet has been a restive area in China for decades and its current uprising, apart from being the most dangerous one since 1959, also takes place at the most inconvenient moment when Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics next August. The violent riots in Tibet and the brutality with which Beijing responded have attracted the attention of the world’s leaders as well as human rights groups many of whom now call for a boycott of the Olympics (Demick, 2008b). The 72-year old Dalai Lama, by contrast, said that the Chinese people deserve to host the 2008 Summer Olympics emphasizing that he opposes their boycotting (Magnier, 2008c). Sympathy demonstrations have been held around the world whose participants have tried to disrupt the passage of the Olympic Games torch in Europe, the USA, and Asia demanding that Beijing start the negotiations with the Dalai Lama to resolve the conflict peacefully and ease control over Tibet (Torch song trilogy). France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk have already announced they may not attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics scheduled for August 8th if China does not resume its talks with the Dalai Lama (Elegant, 2008). Obama and Clinton, the Democratic candidates for the US presidency, believe Bush should boycott it, too. With the protests spreading further in Tibet, more critics of China will be galvanized around the world and more western leaders will be pressed to ignore the Beijing’s opening ceremony (Torch song trilogy). The way China deals with the current riots in Tibet is brutal, but not as brutal, however, as it was in 1989 when the last big protests erupted in Lhasa. Beijing has to show relative restraint because of the forthcoming Olympics and the reaction of the international â€Å"Page # 4† community to the events in Tibet. On the one hand, the government top-ranking officials are aware of the fact that for Tibetans the Games are a perfect chance to bring the attention of foreign governments to their situation under Beijing’s rule and with the help of other Tibetans living abroad to put more pressure on the government to give them religious and political freedom. So Beijing is forced to forbear from any harsh suppression of the rioting it preferred to use in the past. On the other hand, the government can’t ease the crackdown as it worries that ethnic minorities in other parts of China may get emboldened to revolt, too, if the Tibetan dissident movement is not suppressed. It concerns in particular the far region of Xinjiang in western China which is populated by restive Muslim Uighurs (Trashing the Beijing Road). Besides, any compromise with or concession to the Dalai Lama and Tibetans may undermine Beijing’s authority inside China now that government leaders succeeded in fueling nationalist sentiments among its citizens who believe that Tibetan territory belongs to China (Elegant, 2008). The US stance on China-Tibet conflict After the telephone conversation between President Bush and China’s president Hu Jintao on March 26th, Bush said China was ready to hold talks with the Dalai Lama (Welcome to the Olympics). For the Bush administration abuse of human rights in Tibet is undoubtedly an important issue. However, the administration is opposed to any boycotting of the 2008 Summer Olympics as some European leaders propose because it is aware that such steps will publicly humiliate the entire Chinese society, not just its government, and will not resolve the problem. The fact is that the list of the US issues with China includes also North Korea and Iran and their nuclear weapons. These are the countries on which Beijing has influence and can persuade them to give up their WMD programs. Chinese cooperation on Darfur is also desperately needed. So instead of shaming China, the Bush administration has chosen to â€Å"Page # 5† follow a wiser policy and urged Beijing to start serious talks with the Dalai Lama persuading the Chinese that he can help pacify the region and that this move is in China’s interest as well. Besides, the Dalai Lama who has an enormous influence on Tibetans has said on several occasions that he seeks only cultural autonomy, not independence (Boycott opening ceremonies). REFERENCES: 1. Boycott opening ceremonies. (2008, April 21). Newsweek. Retrieved April 22, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.newsweek.com/id/131761 2. Demick, B. (2008a, March 13). Tibetan monks protest Chinese rule. Los Angeles Times on the Web. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-tibet13mar13,0,4684975.story 3. Demick, B. (2008b, March 17). Tibet protests spread in China. Los Angeles Times on the Web. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-tibet17mar17,0,6519991.story 4. Elegant, S. (2008, April 10). China’s Olympic shame. Time magazine. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729704,00.html 5. Magnier, M. (2008a, March 15). 10 reported dead in Tibet rioting. Los Angeles Times on the Web. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-tibet15mar15,0,5602483.story 6. Magnier, M. (20 08b, March 16). China cracks down in Tibet and beyond as protests spread. Los Angeles Times on the Web. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-tibet16mar16,0,6720285,full.story 7. Magnier, M. (2008c, March 17). China plays victim for its audience. Los Angeles Times on the Web. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-chispin17mar17,0,6547698.story?track=ntothtml 8. Torch song trilogy. (2008, April 10). The Economist. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11016360 9. Trashing the Beijing Road. (2008, March 19). The Economist. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875823 10. Welcome to the Olympics. (2008, March 27). The Economist. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10925708